The use of dental floss as part of a regular health maintenance program for dental hygiene has been proven to be extremely effective in helping minimize dental problems. Nevertheless, not as many people use dental floss as would be benefited by its use. Among the reasons why dental floss is not more universally used is the inconvenience and trouble of using dental floss without the assistance of mechanical aids.
Various devices have been proposed to assist in the use of dental floss. Among these is the device shown in British Pat. No. 778,564 which discloses a tooth cleaning device wherein the dental floss is looped around a forked end of a device and hook on a lug for adjustable tension. The device is hand powered.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,147,594 discloses a dental tool in which an endless band of finishing strips is mounted in a pulley system which is held by hand.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,667,483 teaches a dental floss reciprocator embodying a pair of arms projecting from a support frame and spaced from each other to receive teeth therebetween. Guides at the outer ends of the arms receive and permit relative movement of floss passing from a supply reel to a takeup reel. Forward and rearward angular movement imparted alternately to the reels with forward movement greater than the rearward movement to reciprocate and move the floss progressively to take up reels is disclosed.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,822,432 discloses a rotary tooth cleaning device which is drivably secured to the end of a hand held power drive shaft with a self-contained motor. No description of dental floss is suggested in this patent.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,847,167 discloses a reciprocating power driven device for holding and moving a ring of dental floss which is positioned to have access to the mouth. The ring of floss is advanced to bring a clean section into the area between the arms manually after the idle pulley is retracted. Neither of these devices shown in these last two patents show the continuous rotation of a loop of dental floss material under controlled tension to effectively clean the areas between the teeth.
The foregoing patents were located in a preliminary search. Applicant and those in privity with him know of no closer prior art than that set out above; and they know of no prior art which anticipates the claim made in this application.